The Daily Journal.- U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his country will receive a shipment of one million barrels of Venezuelan oil as a gift following the January 3 military operation that led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
“We took control of Venezuela very successfully, and they have sent me a ship carrying one million barrels of oil as a gift,” Trump told reporters, referring to the shipment of Venezuelan crude scheduled to arrive in Texas on Tuesday.
Shortly before, the president had confirmed the shipment’s arrival on Truth Social: “Thanks to our renewed relationship with Venezuela, which has turned out to be truly excellent, oil is flowing to the United States at NO cost to the American taxpayer,” Trump wrote.
The president described the shipment as the first in a series of much larger deliveries and claimed it marks the beginning of “BILLIONS of barrels to come.”
Venezuelan crude oil holds particular appeal for U.S. refineries, especially those equipped to process heavy crude. Converting it into fuels and other petroleum products depends on processing capacity, operating costs, and the commercial terms of each transaction.
Trump traveled to Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday to strengthen support for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who faces a closely contested race against Democrat James Talarico.
The Republican president also claimed that increasing energy supplies would help lower fuel prices in the United States.
“Gasoline and diesel prices will soon PLUMMET, JUST WATCH!” he wrote on his social media platform.
In his post, the president presented the shipment as part of a strategy to expand U.S. energy dominance across the Western Hemisphere.
“By unleashing Energy Dominance from Alaska to Venezuela, I have turned the Western Hemisphere into the Energy Capital of the World,” he stated.
